Lord of Dark Places

Lord of Dark Places

First edition (US)
Author	Hal Bennett
Language	English
Published	1970
Publisher	W. W. Norton (US) Calder and Boyars (UK)
Publication place	United States
ISBN	9781885983121

Lord of Dark Places is a novel by Hal Bennett. It deals with the events surrounding a black man from the American South who moves to the north. It has been described as "a satirical and all but scatological attack on the phallic myth", :

Then one day, Joe woke up and decided to cut his dick off, he was just that disgusted with himself, man! He'd been here in the North for five years, and he hadn't done a damn thing but fuck and get sucked! He had gone to Cousinsville several times and talked to some people from down home. Nobody there had heard anything about Titus. Reverend Cobb was supposed to be hiding up here in the North somewhere, people said. "I hear tell he burned the house down on his wife and escaped up here. You ever heard of a preacher doing something like that, burning up his wife?" Joe shrugged. He expected preachers to do anything, that's how much he thought of them. "What do you hear about May Jones?" he had asked. "Oh, she's still out there on the highway, selling tail as usual." So, she had gone back to Burnside after her vacation. He remembered meeting her in that tent in Alabama. She had told him he ought to come North. Well, he was here, and it wasn't too damned different from being in that tent down South. White people were just sneakier, that was all. They hated you the same way they hated you down South; but up here, they were sneaky motherfuckers. Joe went back to Newark and sold some dick. The North didn't show him much, but North or South, he was always doing the same thing. Selling dick. Right now, he wished he had a knife, he'd cut that motherfucker right off. He honestly would.